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IA here, IA that, you will have to get used to expecting this kind of speech from now on. Indeed, if artificial intelligence was already massively present in our smartphones, the subject is also taking pride of place on laptops.
Thus, Intel highlights the neural network acceleration component of the Intel Core Ultra 5 processor dedicated, as you will have already understood, to AI. To offer this type of PC which should become more popular in the future, Medion is taking on the challenge of limiting itself to a price of 799 euros, and we will see here if the approach is successful here.
Price and availability of the Medion E15443
. It has only one configuration available in France.
Technical specifications of the Medion E15443
| Medion E15443 | < /th> |
|---|---|
| Screen | 15.6″ IPS anti-glare |
| Processor | Intel Core Ultra 5 125H Meteor Lake |
| RAM | 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR5 5600 MHz |
| Graphics card | Intel Arc integrated into the processor |
| Storage | 512GB M.2 SSD (NVMe PCIe) |
| Connection | 2 USB 3.2 (Gen1) + 1 USB 2.0 + 1 USB 3.2 Type-C (Gen2), HDMI 1.4, microSD/SDHC/SDXC card reader |
| Network | Wi-Fi 6 axis (2×2, Intel AX203), Bluetooth 5.1 |
| Audio | 2 speakers |
| Battery< /td> | Li-Ion 3 cells 55Whr 4825mAh |
| Weight/Dimensions (mm) | 1.81 Kg/359 x 240 x 20.6 |
Who is Medion?
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Medion, a European company whose products you have probably already seen sold at various major brands like Aldi . Having experienced rather complicated times until then, Medion has since been bought in 2011 by Lenovo, the German brand is making a comeback on the market by wishing to offer accessible technological innovations such as AI in the Medion E15443 laptop PC that we are going to test today.
For this, a partnership has been signed with Intel which fully equips this model with an Intel Core Ultra 5 processor, with Arc architecture for the graphics part. In this regard, the Medion has received Intel Evo certification which therefore meets strict standards promising pleasant use for the user such as the implementation of artificial intelligence at their service.
Relative manufacturing quality
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If we have to start with one point that is not the most pleasant with the Medion E15443, it is probably the manufacturing quality which is its biggest weak point. Made of plastic with rough assembly, we regularly heard it squeak when, for example, naturally putting our thumb under its shell in order to use the touchpad.
Its hinge at two attachment points seems to lack slightly rigidity, perhaps due to the fact that it can be rotated 180°, which is not of much use for this laptop PC devoid of 'a touch screen. The rather rough sliding of the touchpad will not improve the overall impression of lack of quality in the materials used. Fortunately, the Medion's chiclet keyboard offers a good typing feel, which is still important for a PC that should primarily be used for office automation and content creation.
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Another point on which users could be hesitant about what is nevertheless a good intention concerns the private mode switch. This allows you to activate or deactivate the webcam and microphone at your leisure. Located to the left of the PC, it could confuse new users who will have difficulty understanding why the webcam and microphone are not working, which has apparently already happened if the question asked on the Medion community forum is to be believed. Here, we would have preferred the solution adopted by many manufacturers, which is to simply put a physical slide in front of the camera lens, which makes things easier and reinforces the feeling of security of private life.
We note here that Medion has certainly sought to make as much savings as possible on the exterior packaging of the E15443 which contains a rather muscular configuration offered by Intel at an affordable price here.
Our daily use
Despite having made certain regrettable choices regarding the design of the E15443, we will highlight here Medion's decision to have integrated a reader Micro SD card, again so that content creators on a limited budget can easily exploit the possibilities offered by the PC. On a daily basis, the Medion E15443 makes up for its weaknesses by offering a quality user experience, particularly for teleworking.
As promised by the Intel Evo standard, the PC launches quickly, and the cooling is particularly effective to the point of being able to use it without problem while keeping it on your lap despite intensive use of it. To the delight of our ears, the Medion PC uses a particularly quiet fan. As part of our tests, we have office use of it, with word processing, web browsing, video streaming, then photo editing on Photoshop.
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Le Medion E15443 has never had any problems during this everyday use, making it a good partner for everyday use.
There is still one point that particularly bothered us in its current use, and that is the obligation to use an AC DC mains charger, a standard that we had not seen or used for years.
Not offering charging via USB-C cable in 2024 is still taking a big step backwards by forcing the user to carry around a charger archaic when almost all devices now offer a single format, and therefore a single charger.
In terms of image and sound, what does that give  ;?
The 15.6-inch IPS panel that equips the E15443 offers a matte effect which helps to avoid reflections from the sun as much as possible. However, it will be difficult to work outdoors or in a particularly bright place, the screen offering a slightly weak brightness even at the maximum level.
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If the colorimetry is quite far from reality, we will however appreciate the contrast offered by the IPS panel, as well as its significant viewing angles, as one would expect on this type of panel. The refresh rate does not exceed 60Hz, the Medion PC is not part of the brand's Erazer gaming range, and it is not intended to offer exceptional gaming performance.
Regarding the sound offered by the laptop, it is equipped with two speakers which provide an experience that one would expect for a computer at this price. The experience could have been better if the speaker grilles were not facing downwards, which is not ideal when the PC is on a desk, and is even less so when it is on a lap . We will therefore prefer to favor the headphone jack available on the right edge.
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Overall, the Medion PC is not doing too badly, it being quite versatile and will suit many.
Rather high autonomy for a small battery size
The Medion PC is equipped with a 55 Whr battery, which by current industry standards is rather reasonable. This is where the interest of AI will be felt, with rather low consumption in office use.
In our testing, we kept the screen brightness at maximum, to get an average of 7 hours of use, which should be enough for most users in a work day without having to recharge the device .
Knowing that according to our tests it takes at least 1h40 of charging to go from 10 to 100% battery, convincing autonomy was indeed necessary.
And Artificial Intelligence then ?
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The Medion laptop is one of the first to have the specific key Copilot to which we dedicated an article to explain what it was used for here.
To make it short, the key will be used during the next Windows update to invoke the assistant developed by Microsoft which uses artificial intelligence. In the meantime, the key is not of much use, and only the future will tell us if it was legitimate on the part of MS to impose this new key on a keyboard which has changed very little in recent decades .
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Given that Intel promised us that the use of AI would be completely invisible to the user, it is obviously very difficult for us to test the functionalities offered by the neural network acceleration component of the Intel Core Ultra 5 processor.
< p>The idea here is to perform AI-related tasks more quickly, which will become particularly useful as software offers such features. In the meantime, we can see the optimization of autonomy thanks to AI, given the small size of the Medion E15443 battery for prolonged use.
Our opinion on the Medion E15443
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Intel Evo certified, the Medion E15443 has a respectable configuration for requested price. It is particularly suitable for office tasks, as it offers a digital keyboard as well as golden silence even with intensive use.
Having convincing autonomy, we will however criticize it for the impossibility of charging it using a USB-C port, which would have been a real plus and which is nevertheless standard at the moment. In addition, you will have to be particularly careful with the Medion E15443, its manufacturing quality not really being up to the price requested here.
Finally, it is currently difficult to see what the point is of having an AI-boosted PC. So, buying the E15443 now is also betting on the future of a massive arrival of this kind of need.
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